Eclectic commentary from a progressive voice in the reddest part of the red state

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Confronting the right-wing Texas governor's hate and hypocrisy

March 22, 2017

Greg Abbott

State Capitol Bldg.

1100 Congress, Room 2S.1

Austin, TX 78701

FAX 1(512)463-1849

Mr. Abbott:

One of the difficult things to do in addressing the Republican leadership of Texas is to keep a civil tone. The Republican resistance to other views is startling. So many of you have become intolerant of anyone else. You and your allies are very close to becoming a Christian Taliban.

Here are some things you need to know:

·A large number of Texans don’t support the faux Christian views you and your cohorts claim are Christ’s message. We see the message far differently. It’s a message of love, tolerance, care, compassion and acceptance. It’s not the judgmental hate you wrap in the false flag gospel, the cross and the American flag.

·The Republicans retain political control of Texas through treacherous dishonesty. The gerrymandering coupled with the straight party line voting is just the tip of the iceberg. The dishonesty extends to lying and propaganda, disinformation and participating in the dumbing down of voters by undercutting the public schools in this fine state. It is not only a threat to the Founders’ spirit of democracy, but it is a threat to our country’s national security. What could be more treasonous?

·Many of us — more than you think — see through the purpose of pushing the hot-button social issues.

Through years of propaganda, you and your co-conspirators have convinced people that abortion, gay rights and other such issues harm society and are an affront to God. That you and your collaborators claim to know the mind of God and that His message to you applies to the rest of us is beyond gall. It is a form of sacrilege and heresy.

You siding with that idiot Dan Patrick over the so-called “bathroom bill” is further evidence that you and your accessories are willing to use false issues, disinformation and propaganda as distractions; but, it also reveals a hatred and mean-spirited intolerance of what you can’t or won’t understand. And if you do understand, then your cynical disregard of science and medicine makes you more deplorable than anyone could have imagined.

The impetus for legislating based on your interpretation of the Gospel is justification enough for Vanderbilt University Law School to rescind your degree. Even a well-educated citizen understands the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Why don’t you?

The truth is that you and your accomplices are doing the same thing that President Bannon and 45 are doing: You and you connivers are misdirecting so you and your big business Babbitts and corporatist allies can enrich themselves and you while destroying the protections from corporatist criminality. That is the basis of your drive for the convention of states.

You use of political hot-button issues lets you misdirect observers away from your failure of executive responsibility. Texas’ roads and highways used to be the best in the nation. But you and your right-wing Republican predecessors have attended to political ambitions, thus giving travelers short shrift and, with some road defects, even putting people at risk of life and limb. Cutting the Texas parks budget, colluding with the Legislature to permit that, is an unconscionable abuse of God’s creation, another form of sacrilege that defines more of your character. Fighting the Affordable Care Act, fighting expansion of Medicaid and waging war on women with your anti-life battle make it clear you care not one whit for the least of those.

·Your hypocrisy on personal and political issues merge into a picture that makes you and your fellow Texas Republicans poster boys and girls for a new version of the movie “1984.”

Neither you nor any other governmental entity has any right to subjugate vulvas, vaginas, penises, anuses or other body orifices to government inspection or to demand that clinicians do the same on behalf of your political interests. The United States Supreme Court has settled it and it’s the law of the land. Back off. Legislation, passed as recently as March 21, and other measures that invade the privacy of our bedrooms, our doctors’ offices and our bodies, with your support, give lie to the mantra that you want government off our backs. How far will you go with this anti-women/war-on-women threat? Female circumcision to remove the pleasure of love and sex?

By backing “tort reform” and liability caps, you raise personal hypocrisy to a level beyond anyone with even the weakest moral compass or the smallest scintilla of empathy or compassion. Had tort reform been in place when you had your tragic accident, where would you be? Isn’t your entire arc of political posturing on this topic reflecting the “I’ve got mine, now screw the rest of you?” Or do you not see that? Or, if you do, tell us how your conscience permits this position, unless it’s clearly a protection of the corporate interests who permit you and others of your ilk to hold public office?

Mr. Abbott, you are no more “my governor” than are President Bannon and the 45-Putin Puppet “my president.” And you are no more the governor to those who share my worldview. At some point, you should realize this and I am honored to transmit that information to you.